Roland Halbritter: a dark surprise

[Nancy Bell Scott]

Well, it's dark, but with a colorful (and Spanish) interruption: Still, the black by itself speaks. As if this weren't mysterious enough to receive--including the fact that I've had no previous contact with the obviously whimsical Mr Halbritter--the other side took much longer to understand: That the handwritten message is in German was easy enough to assume. But why were his regards written over it, and why did he write my name and address over someone else's? It became clear that this postcard was originally written by someone else, not just to someone else. Curious about what the original writer was conveying, I asked Svenja Wahl for help in translating, and she said:

"The card seems to be an old family postcard - the kind of handwriting could be from my grandmother, an old mode of writing the letters! It says: 

 My dears (?),

sure you are astonished to see me here in Spain! I l flew here 14 days ago, with a flight in 12.000 meters hight, above the alps and France and the Mediterranean - great! Wednesday I'm flying to algier. The flying is fun to me. Hopefully ... (One sentence I can't decipher) Kind regards"

Among other things, this is a refreshing reminder that back then a person could hop on some newfangled mode of transportation, not be heard from for 14 days, and then write a surprise postcard from another country, probably without anyone getting upset. Wow! No one could telephone, email, text, twitter, or otherwise bother this person into submitting reports of his or her whereabouts twenty times a day. Wow. I call that Freedom.

Roland Halbritter, thank you very much for this excellent surprise and reminder. I love the whole thing, including the way the black paint crept around the edges.

[Svenja Wahl]

Maybe holiday at the Black Sea

[Nancy Bell Scott]

He looks like one of the swimmer's from the one Cheryl received, but with the pool and other people gone gone gone. (That one reminds me of the "Truman Show" movie, because the black is such a wall. Yours here looks like the black could be waded into. Maybe IS being waded into?)

[Svenja Wahl]

I liked Rolands black and white postcards so much, and now I have my own! Very black, just a tiny sunburned man in bathing shorts visible. I love it. The reverse side saying "Many greetings from Franz + Heidi + Roland. It is very warm here 30-35° C." Because it is German, I wondered "Who on earth is Franz and Heidi and Roland???" Very funny, I like it very much. 

 

[Nancy Bell Scott]

It's great to see these related Halbritter works posted. I'm completely crazy about them. That pool surrounded by black, darker and thicker than night! Hmm.

[cheryl penn]

My half-black - its quite LOOMING!

[cheryl penn]

FAB! NBF - Hold on - I got half a black one! Will post just now :-) X

[Svenja Wahl]

I like both of them!